


And All The Roads We Have To Walk Are Winding

by creatureofhobbit



Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 03:26:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15087983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: Justin thinks about where his life could have gone if he'd made different choices.





	And All The Roads We Have To Walk Are Winding

**Author's Note:**

> References to suicide and rape in canon, however this fic is imagining scenarios where they didn't happen, so wasn't quite sure what to put in the warning section and am explaining it here.

Sometimes Justin’s wondered about all the different futures that could have been available to him; how life could have been if he’d acted differently. What if, for example, that day in the third grade, he’d told Bryce he didn’t need him to defend him, that he was doing just fine, and Bryce had listened to that and left Justin to it?

**The One Where Justin Never Became Friends with Bryce**

_“I don’t need you to stick up for me,” Justin snapped. “Leave me alone.”_

_“Suits me,” Bryce snapped, turning his back and going back to sit with the other kids who’d been laughing at Justin earlier. “I only wanted to steal that kid’s Twinkies anyway,” he said, taking a big bite and grinning._

_From that day, Justin continued to avoid Bryce. At first he was okay with that. Who wanted someone like that defending him anyway? But then, as time went on, and Bryce continued to make cracks about the state of Justin’s clothes, about the fact that he never had anything much to eat, he often wondered what would have happened if he had taken up Bryce’s offer to be friends that day, to sit there with Bryce and Monty and Zach, to be able to try out for the basketball team and know he stood a fighting chance instead of having those guys trip him up as soon as he stepped on to the field, to not have people chant “Foley was born in a bin” after him (although he’d never actually read the Harry Potter books, it only took a few chants of that to have the Weasley Is Our King song permanently emblazed on his brain). Instead, it felt at times like Bryce was deliberately targeting him, unable to accept the fact that Justin had actually turned down his offer of friendship._

_And as for girlfriends? Forget it. He’d had a crush on Kat for months, but was unable to do anything more than stand outside watching as kids celebrated with her at her going away party, as Zach managed to set the sprinkler off and soak Monty by accident. That new girl Hannah, Jessica Davis…none of them would look twice at him. Why would they want anything to do with the unwashed kid with no friends who had nothing to offer anyone, who couldn’t invite anyone back because his home life was shit, who couldn’t even open up to anyone?_

_In that one moment, he could have been one of the popular kids. Instead, he’d made himself the class outcast._

 

In one respect, a part of Justin wasn’t sorry he had accepted Bryce’s friendship back then, because in the moment, it had saved him from that future where he had become the school outcast. Yet now when he looks at Jessica, or at any of his friends, he wonders now why he had ever thought having the approval of someone like that had mattered. Alex had called it, that day he was yelling at them all about how he regretted wanting the rapist to like him, and how Hannah might have still been there if he had acted differently. Justin just hadn’t had the balls to stand up and say he agreed with him.

He'd thought that being cast out at school was the worst thing that could have happened to him at the time. Now he’d learned that some things were much worse.

 

**The One Where Justin Didn’t Let Hannah Get A Reputation**

_In an ideal world, Justin wouldn’t have had to delete the photo. He had nowhere else he could save it to; how could he possibly have a laptop when he knew damn well that the minute his back was turned, his mother and Seth would have sold it to buy more drugs? He usually got around the need for one for homework by borrowing Bryce’s old one, and used his phone for just about everything else._

_But he had the memory, and that was enough. He knew what Bryce was like. He’d got hold of some revealing photos of some cheerleader on Monty’s phone a few weeks ago and had sent them round to the whole class. If he saw that picture of Hannah, he’d do exactly the same._

_He had the chance of something real with Hannah. She’d let him stay when he’d had that fight with Seth, she’d understood. She was fun, she was someone who understood him, who he could talk to. Bryce didn’t like it at first, was irritated by the fact that someone else was taking his place as the most important person in Justin’s life, but gradually in time he stopped giving Justin crap over it, accepted Hannah as his girlfriend. She accepted his past, his circumstances, and was still able to see the real Justin anyway. He finally had something good in his life._

_All he had to do now was not screw it up._

 

Would Justin have stayed with Hannah if he hadn’t let Bryce near the photo? Or would he have ended up falling for Jessica anyway and ended up breaking her heart? Justin would never know. But even if he and Hannah hadn’t worked out, without him letting Bryce circulate that photo, Hannah wouldn’t have ended up getting that same reputation, Alex might not have added her to his dumbass list, Marcus wouldn’t have tried to prove she was as easy as the rumours claimed. As for Zach…maybe Hannah would have believed him that he really liked her, and they could have made a go of it. Instead, Justin had screwed things up for him too.

Justin could never be sure what would have happened. But either way, he was sure that Hannah would have had an easier time of it at school.

She would probably still be here today.

 

**The One Where Justin Saved Jessica**

_He’d always thought of Bryce as the one who saved him, the one who’d give Justin the shirt off his back if he needed it, the one who was always able to provide a safe haven when it got too much with his mother and Seth, or whichever asshole boyfriend she was screwing at the time, the one who helped Justin to fit in, to hide the background he really came from so that he would be accepted by people at high school._

_Sometimes, Bryce would make comments about other kids that made Justin feel uncomfortable, like the time Skye Walker walked past and Bryce had made some crack about her wearing those old ripped jeans because she couldn’t afford any better ones. As Monty and Scott laughed, Justin had to force himself to join in, remembering how easily Bryce could have been making those cracks about him. But he’d never say anything to him, because it was only thanks to Bryce that Justin was anyone at all, possibly even that he was still here._

_Anyone else, he wasn’t sure if he would intervene._

_But this was Jessica. His girlfriend, the one he wanted to be with. That trumped all the years of friendship he shared with Bryce. And as for worrying about no one else wanting to be friends with him any more? Anyone who supported Bryce was no great loss to Justin, and he was pretty sure there would be other kids, kids who weren’t friends of Bryce’s, who would support him. And he’d have Jessica._

_He ran into the room, kicked down the door, grabbed someone’s discarded bottle, smashed it over Bryce’s head._

_“What the fuck did you just do, Foley?” Bryce spat as he struggled to his feet, Justin racing towards him, holding him in an armlock, dragging him out of the room. Hannah Baker suddenly appeared from nowhere – where the fuck did she come from? Justin wondered, but noticed that she was covering Jessica with a blanket, checking that she was okay. Reassured that Jessica was in good hands, Justin dragged Bryce away, punching him in the face. Everyone stared as Justin shoved Bryce out of the front door, punched him once more, and Justin didn’t explain. The whole school didn’t need to know what had happened. Bryce would probably have some bullshit explanation for everyone the next day anyway, but Justin wasn’t sure it mattered. What mattered was that he’d saved Jessica._

 

Maybe in that scenario, Justin and Jessica would still be together. Or maybe they wouldn’t; his presence could have reminded her too much of what happened that night, leading Jessica to want to separate anyway. Justin couldn’t know.

But he watched Jessica now, talking and laughing with Courtney and Ryan, and he thought how long it had been since he had seen her that relaxed and happy, thought about how she and Alex had had so much time out of Liberty High, and he knew that what had happened to her had been his fault almost as much as Bryce’s. Hannah Baker had known that all along. Now Justin understood that too.

 

**The One Way Justin’s Life Did Go**

They’d both made the same suggestion, talked about taking off, where no one had ever heard of them, where no one knew anything about tapes, Bryce Walker or Hannah Baker.

When they’d had their conversation in front of their parents (that was still taking some getting used to) they had actually supported the idea. Taking a few weeks travelling after school finished for the year, getting to know each other as brothers, and a chance to get away from it all, without having to think about recent events…their parents felt that a road trip was exactly what both of them needed.

As he and Clay drove down the highways, occasionally finding some quirky postcard to send to Tony or Zach or Alex, Justin thought about how there were so many roads he could have taken, and yet none of them would have led him to where he was today, finally feeling like he had a chance in life, with a family who actually gave a rat’s ass about him, and friends who he trusted, who made him feel like he had something to offer, and finally free of the influence of Bryce Walker.

Of course there are so many things he wishes hadn’t happened. But Justin finally felt like the road he was taking was the right one.


End file.
